The U.S. ought to hold the trial of disgraced former super FBI counterintelligence agent Charles McGonigal in Tirana, Albania, the site of his alleged shakedown schemes, said the well known analyst, Peter Lucas in an article carried by Boston Herald.
According to him, Albania would be the place because that is where all the witnesses are, many of whom are barred from entering the United States – declared persona non grata – based on nonexistent or phony sanctions.
“An open trial in Tirana would allow the U.S. to show its little NATO ally – and the rest of the world – how there are not two systems of justice in America, or in Albania,” he said.
It is stressed in the article that Albania is a country where McGonigal got rich without the FBI knowing anything about his rogue behavior. And that behavior included cementing a secret relationship with Albanian Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama. McGonigal worked the Russian side of the street as well.
“While Rama has acknowledged meetings with McGonigal, he has denied any wrongdoing but has thwarted attempts for an internal investigation. His political opponents in the center-right Democrat Party have charged, however, that McGonigal was paid to stigmatize and destroy Rama opponent Sali Berisha, a former prime minister, by recommending that he be smeared with sanctions to thwart a political comeback,” said Lucas, who added that U.S. Albanian Ambassador Yuri Kim has also thrown herself into Albanian politics as no other ambassador has ever done. “Kim tried to get Berisha thrown out of the Democrat Party, which he originally founded upon the fall of communism in 1999.”
The article said that Berisha is no saint. “Outside of Mother Theresa, there are no saints in the Balkans. There are no saints in the FBI either. But Berisha was and is a staunch anti-communist who was the first leader of the Democrat Party following the ouster of the Communist regime. He served as president from 1992 to 1997, and again as prime minister from 2005 to 2013. He was always staunchly pro-American,” said Lucas. /argumentum.al
